What can you expect to see this weekend at The Community Observatory?

A 85% illuminated bright waxing gibbous Moon will dominate the early evening sky this weekend. While its bright light may wash out some fainter galaxies and nebulae, it will also provide some excellent opportunities to explore the Moon's craters & mountain ranges through our telescopes! 

Another exciting object available to view this weekend is Supernova SN 2026sqf. This is the explosion of a massive star that has reached the end of its life. It was discovered on July 8th in a galaxy a hundred million light years away! 

We’re about to enter a bit of a planet drought in our evening skies. Venus is sinking lower toward the western horizon as it prepares to disappear from the evening sky. The good news is that Saturn isn’t too far behind & we only have to wait about 2 months to share its wonder with you once again!

For those of you planning to join us August 12-13 for Perseids Meteor Shower, since we’ll be open until 1:00 a.m., it might give us our first opportunity of the season to share views of Saturn through our telescopes with you.

After that, it will still be another month or so before Saturn rises early enough to be visible during our regular public observing hours.


This Week’s Featured Object:

M13 - The Great Hercules Globular Cluster


Located about 22,000 light years away, M13 contains hundreds of thousands of stars bound together by gravity. At first glance, M13 may look like a fuzzy ball of light, but you're actually looking at one of the oldest residents of our galaxy. At an estimated 11-13 billion years old, these stars formed long before our Sun even existed.

Join us this weekend from 9pm-11pm for a chance to see this incredible ancient star cluster with your own eyes through one of our telescopes.

As of right now, the weather this weekend looks fantastic, but don’t forget to check CommunityObservatory.com after 3pm on the day of your visit to make sure we are open. Expect to pay $2 to the college to park.

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